Human Rights, Inclusion and Empowerment

Economic development and service delivery are undermined by institutions which are unaccountable and not inclusive and poor governance in general. Corruption, exclusion, and lack of participation and accountability can indicate unfulfilled human rights. Empowering all groups and individuals to participate in public affairs in a meaningful way can promote inclusive institutions and accountability and discourage corrupt practices.

The Umbrella supports governance areas, such as access to justice, decentralization, GovTech/one-stop shops/citizen service centers, public financial management, and anti-corruption, to make projects in this sector more inclusive, transparent, and participatory. It also includes work on procurement practices through promoting gender equality and economic opportunities for vulnerable groups, including in FCV contexts.

Human rights violations are a key driver of conflict, and realizations of human rights for all a key driver of peace. Ensuring the incorporation of human rights in work in FCV contexts can contribute to peace, to post-conflict stability and to addressing grievances that may hinder development. The Umbrella works in the area of human rights and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, and in the security and development nexus. Additionally, the Umbrella offers support for work on forced displacement, youth participation, inclusion and preventing and countering violent extremism, as well as specific work on governance in FCV contexts.

Inclusion is often mentioned in the same breath as the human right principle of participation and is often focused on targeted efforts on specific marginalized groups, although mainstreaming is also important from a human rights perspective. Work in this area supports the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people; the inclusion of persons with disabilities; Indigenous Peoples and ethnic minorities. The work under this priority area will also continue to fund broader analytical work around discrimination and systemic inequalities and how to empower marginalized groups in society.

This program supports rigorous research and evaluations to add to existing knowledge around the value of incorporating human rights into development operations, and how best to do so. This will contribute to expanding the knowledge on the added value, in terms of inclusive and sustainable social and economic development, of considering human rights in development. There are still knowledge gaps in how the incorporation of human rights affects the development process and development outcomes. In addition to reducing this knowledge gap, this will seek to advance the collection of data that enables analyses for example of the inclusion of different marginalized groups in economic and social development. The component will also support evaluations of and explore different methodologies for evaluating the incorporation of human rights in Bank operations.